Drainage duty for councils demanded

Councils should be responsible for ensuring their areas are effectively drained, Parliament's environment, food and rural affairs committee has said.

In a scathing report, MPs investigating last year’s floods criticised the absence of a single agency to deal with flooding emergencies.

They recommended the Environment Agency (EA) should have an over-arching role to provide advice and guidance on flooding, but said local authorities should have a statutory duty to ensure their areas are effectively drained.

“When drains began to overflow it was difficult to determine who was responsible for which drains,” the committee said.

LGA: 'Share responsibility'

MP, committee chair, said: “It is vital that the public can see that policies to deal with surface water flooding are well co-ordinated and managed by key players such as local authorities, the EA and utility providers.”

The MPs also said the government’s£800m bid to prevent a repeat of last year’s devastating floods is insufficient.

In response to the report, the Local Government Association said the government should introduce a legal requirement on water companies and other bodies to co-operate with local authorities to prepare flood prevention plans.

Environment secretary Michael Gove has launched draft legislation to set up an independent environmental watchdog which will “hold government and public bodies to account” after Brexit, including scrutinising new targets on waste.

An LGC subscription...

...gives you access to LGCplus.com, containing an unparalleled database of tens of thousands of articles offering the news, data, guidance and case studies that councils need to withstand cuts and improve services